


No need for you to roll the dice

by crookedspoon



Series: Exchange Fics [35]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Courtship, F/M, Obsession, POV Edward Nygma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 07:23:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20224036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Edward is befuddled. At first glance, he would never have spared Harley a second. She's not a riddle by any stretch of the imagination, so by all means he should not be taken with her.





	No need for you to roll the dice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Val_Creative](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Val_Creative/gifts).

He leaves her riddles (of course he does), little clues that, if she solves them, will mean that she is worthy of him.

Or so he thought.

But when she tosses each one out unread and his interest _still _doesn't wane, Edward is befuddled. At first glance, he would never have spared Harley a second. She's not a riddle by any stretch of the imagination, so by all means he should not be taken with her.

It doesn't make any sense.

This interest of his, it's not even about _solving _her, in which case he could at least understand why he is tirelessly hatching plans to get her attention that she tirelessly ignores. That he then tirelessly ignores she ignores. 

Because Edward is nothing if not dedicated. Some might say obsessive. (Though whatever imbecile would claim something so outrageously outlandish has not grasped the superior nature of his intellect. Poor soul. Few ever do.) He devises ever more elaborate schemes to get her to notice him, from the giant teddy bear with a bomb for a heart, over the candy corn he'd strung together with razor wire to make an edible necklace for her, to the jack-in-the-box with a cartoonish likeness of the Joker with crossed-out eyes and a note in its mouth that read _This could be his head next if you but wish it._

He thought it was romantic.

Harley thought so, too. At least, that's the impression he got when she sighed a forlorn sigh and stuffed the paper slip back into the Joker doll's mouth.

"Eddie, sweetie," she says, carrying the box to the nearest trash can. "This is all very nice of you, but I don't know what you're getting at."

"Don't know what I'm getting at?" he thundered, perhaps a little more forceful than intended, but she _was _insulting his carefully laid plans. "Of course you wouldn't. Your pea-sized brain can't even begin to fathom the complexity of my designs."

"That's just what I mean," she said, motioned him to hold open the can for her, and dumped the toy he had brought inside. "You do all'a these things to get my attention, but when you have it, all you do is insult me. I mean, not like that's anything new with you, but the way you're acting, I'm inclined to think of you as a little boy pulling a girl's pigtails because he can't say he like her."

"I didn't pull your pigtails!" he protested, albeit distractedly, charmed as he was by the way her Brooklyn accent broke through.

"You also didn't say you liked me."

"Do I have to spell everything out for you, woman?" She was vexing him on purpose, he could feel it, and yet he could do nothing but fall for it.

"So you _do _like me, Riddles." She smiled. Or maybe it was more of a smirk at his expense. Nothing that should make him apoplectic, but he was having uncharacteristically violent reactions nonetheless. "Good to know."

"It is obvious to even a blind person." He threw his hands up in the air, very close to resignation, except that he would never admit defeat. Ever. "What do I have to do to make you see it, too?"

"Have you ever considered a more direct approach?"

"How much more direct can I be?" he asked, gesturing about with his hands wildly. This was entirely ridiculous.

"If that's your idea of direct, Eddie-boy, phew, you still got a lot to learn."

"I resent that you insinuate that there is anything I still need to learn."

"I know you do," she said and pinched his cheek. "Get used to it."

All in all, the meeting went well. Not exactly how Edward might have planned for it to go in an ideal world, but his circumstances were far from ideal, so who even is keeping tabs anymore? The main thing is that he got her attention at least for a little while and that, furthermore, he is allowed to return as long as he agrees to set his ego aside to truthfully and accurately describe what he would do to keep her attention locked on him.

Like his is locked on her.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and inspiration from "Love Ballad" by Tove Lo.


End file.
